


I Like Being With You Better

by ericaismeg



Series: otp: berica [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:29:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericaismeg/pseuds/ericaismeg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous asked: <i>or boyd being there in her room when all of a sudden erica gets up and gets a shoe box filled with all her hospital bracelets, medication bottles, everything and with boyd by her side, (because he's the only one she feels comfortable enough to do so.) they go outside and burn it all.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Like Being With You Better

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr [here.](http://foxerica.tumblr.com/post/99902205232/or-boyd-being-there-in-her-room-when-all-of-a-sudden)
> 
> Boyd and Erica feels. I have too many, and not enough.

♛♝♛♝♛♝

 

They never need to talk. That’s kind of the beauty of their relationship. They could sit in silence for hours upon hours, just enjoying being around one another. Erica glances up from her ratty copy of Pride and Prejudice to look at Boyd at her desk. He’s drawing, as usual. She decides she needs to stretch, so she rolls off the bed and stands up.

If it’s a silly ploy to peek at what Boyd’s working on, well, it works like a charm. She peeks over his shoulder and her lips part. Holy shit, he’s drawing her face. Hell, he’s not even looking at her right now, but he has her captured perfectly on her bed with her book.

"Boyd," she breathes.

He glances up at her. “What?”

"That’s gorgeous."

"That’s you," he replies simply. She can’t stop herself from resting a hand over her heart. She wonders if he can hear the way it beats quickly when the weight of his words settle. He thinks she’s gorgeous. Erica brushes a piece of hair out of her face.

"I…can I keep that when you’re done?" she asks.

Boyd simply nods.

"Do you want cookies?" Erica asks. "I think I have some downstairs that…that Kira brought over."

"Sure," he answers, his eyes still on his drawing.

She jogs down the stairs and looks around the kitchen for Kira’s cookies. Apparently, Kira had made six different types before realizing that none of them were Scott’s favourite. Things had been busy lately, so Kira had been a little distraught that she couldn’t remember her boyfriend’s favourite cookies. Erica wasn’t going to complain though - she had gotten her favourite cookies.

Erica hovers in the kitchen, staring at the calendar. In a few days, she will have her second werewolf birthday. She knows that no one remembers, and that’s okay. She turns on her heel.

Things are much better this way. But fuck, she remembers who she used to be. She used to be a wreck, afraid to live with her fucking epilepsy always threatening to remind her that she’s weak. Well, now she knows she wasn’t weak—she had no control over it. But back then, god, all she’d wanted was strength.

Erica stretches before she heads back upstairs. She’s enjoying a cookie when she walks back into her room. She tosses one onto the desk beside Boyd’s hand, and then jumps onto her bed. Erica stretches out.

"Life’s good," she murmurs.

Boyd turns his head to glance at her now. There’s the softest smile on his lips. “Yeah, life’s good.”

"My two-year werewolf birthday is soon," Erica tells him. She shakes her head a little. "God, Boyd, you wouldn’t have liked me back then. You wouldn’t have given me a second look."

Boyd shakes his head. “You’re wrong, Erica.”

"Hmm?" She bites into another cookie.

"I noticed you back then." Then Boyd turns to his drawing again. She hears him bite into the cookie she’d given him as she processes his words.

He had noticed her back then? How had she never known? Erica watches the way his hand effortlessly moves across the page. She doesn’t want Boyd to remember her like that. God, she’d felt so pathetic. She had hated herself back then—all of it. Her illness, her face, her body, her personality. She never wants to remember that. She wants to put it all behind her.

Erica sits up straight on the bed, and frowns. She scampers across her bed and flops down, partially over the edge. Head nearly touching the floor, she reaches underneath her bed.

She pulls out a shoe box and sits back up on the bed.

"Boyd," she interrupts the silence they’d fallen into again.

He grunts and lifts his head. Just before he turns, she pops the shoe box lid off. “Yeah, Erica?”

"Can we do something?"

"Right now?" he asks.

"Right now." Boyd doesn’t get a chance to look into the shoe box, because she snaps the lid back on. She hops off the bed once more, but this time she reaches out for Boyd’s hand. “Come with me.” 

"Always," Boyd murmurs. He lets her drag him downstairs.

One of the many reasons she loves Boyd is that he doesn’t ask too many questions. He trusts her to let him in on her grand master schemes, her secrets, and her thoughts. And maybe her undying love for him is the only reason she asks him to be with her now.

She grabs a BBQ lighter from the junk drawer in the kitchen and then she’s leading Boyd outside.

"This box," she says, sitting down on the grass to pop the lid open again. "This box holds my old hospital bracelets, some of my old medicine bottles, a few prescription papers, and—"

Boyd settles on the ground beside her. He reaches out and grabs her hand. “I know you would like to forget that Erica, but I wouldn’t.”

"Why? She was weak. She was pathetic."

"She got back on that rock wall and hit the top," Boyd reminds her gently. "She never let anyone help her, because she was determined to do it by herself. While I know that you used to be lonely, Erica, you must know that I had admired you from afar."

"Bull shit," Erica whispers. She looks up at him though, hopeful.

"Of course I did. You weren’t the only one with an unrequited love as a human, you know," Boyd tells her quietly. "But if you would rather forget, that’s okay too."

"I need to," she whispers. "I need to forget that Erica. She…she isn’t me anymore."

He nods. “We should probably do this in your fire pit.”

"Forever logical, you are," she teases. But neither of them move.

With her free hand, she thumbs through the box. She winces at everything she touches. Erica leans back into Boyd and sighs.

"C’mon, if we’re going to do this, we have to do this right." Then Boyd’s standing up. She watches him take the lighter, wander back into the house, come out with some newspaper, and head to the fire pit. She grabs the box and follows him this time. He motions for her to sit and he works on getting a fire going.

"I’m sorry, Boyd. That I never noticed you before…" Erica starts.

He lets out a soft laugh. “No one noticed me before, Erica. I thought I liked it that way.”

"But?"

"But I like being with you better," Boyd answers.

Suddenly, he has a small fire going. She watches him as he moves to the other side of the pit to light a fire there too. He steps back, and they watch it grow in silence.

When it becomes big enough to sustain itself, Boyd moves to the chair beside hers but doesn’t sit. She stands up, clutching the box now.

"I like being with you better too," she finally says.

Boyd nods.

And Erica dumps all of the contents of the shoe box into the fire. It flashes and flickers at the new food, and Erica leans into Boyd. He wraps his arms around her, and rests his cheek against her hair.

"I’ve never been happier, Boyd. I—that old Erica had been miserable, and depressed, and no matter what you say, I need to be rid of her." Erica’s voice is a faint whisper into the night. "But thank you, thank you for being here for me."

"Where else would I be?" he asks.

A strange tension lifts from her chest, and she vaguely wonders how long it’d been there, before she turns in Boyd’s arms. She strokes her thumb against his cheek and whispers, “That Erica was an idiot. She missed out on some extra time with the best thing that’s happened to her.”

Boyd’s lips quirk upwards and he presses his forehead against hers. “Are you trying to sweeten me up, Erica?”

"Yes, so I can devour you later," she says, giggling softly. "I like my men fat and sweet."

"I take offense to the fat part," Boyd says, chuckling.

"What do you think those cookies were for? Not my figure," she teases.

He laughs once before he tilts his head so that their noses touch. Boyd stills for a moment, but then his lips are on hers and Erica wonders how stupid the old her was. She’d let this incredible guy slip out of her radar? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Oh god, Boyd’s hands are tangling in her hair, on her waist, pulling her closer as though he can’t get enough of her, can’t get closer. She’s leaning into him, she’s so close and yet it doesn’t feel close enough.

When Boyd ends the kiss, she presses a quick one to his nose. He grins. “We’ve got a fire going now. Why don’t we enjoy it?”

"Yeah," she says, nodding. "Let’s."

Five minutes later, Boyd’s sitting on a chair, and Erica’s curled up in his lap. She keeps running her fingers over his face, his chest, his arms, and his hands. She doesn’t want to stop touching him because she’s afraid it might not be real.

When the pack shows up an hour or so later, none of them seem surprise to see Erica and Boyd wrapped up in a blanket in front of the campfire. In fact, Erica sees Scott high-five Stiles and Lydia tell Allison that she’d called the fact that it was going to happen soon. Erica doesn’t mind at all.

Jackson brings a cooler full of beer and wolfsbane, Stiles starts telling some story about how Derek’s a “big idiot”, and Erica teases him that they’d soon be ripping each other’s clothes off if he didn’t watch himself. Stiles doesn’t stop talking, and Derek’s looking more antsy by the second. Lydia pulls a bottle of vodka from her purse, and Allison offers to go steal some of Erica’s OJ for them. Scott is holding Kira’s hand, and complimenting her cookies. Isaac’s in full agreement that the cookies were great.

And Erica feels Boyd squeeze her just a little tighter. She smiles at him and whispers, “Thank you.”

He nods. She doesn’t have to say anything. That’s the beauty of being in love with Boyd.

"I think we should play Truth or Dare," Stiles declares.

"Dumb game," Derek says. "What about Never Have I Ever?"

Stiles, slightly offended and quite competitive, squares his shoulders to eye Derek down.”Never have I ever been in love.”

Stiles drinks. Derek looks hurt now. But Erica lifts her beer bottle to her lips and glances at Boyd. When she lowers it, he snatches it from her and lifts it to his lips. She moves the bottle away so that she can press her lips to his.

"Derek, why aren’t you drinking?" Jackson demands. "You’ve been in love before."

"Ah, right," Derek mutters. He drinks, and then says, "Never have I ever been attracted to someone in the pack."

"We’re getting drunk tonight," Erica whispers to Boyd.

 

♛♝♛♝♛♝


End file.
